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Driftwood Old Cellar Dweller 2015

Description: This is the latest vintage of Driftwood Brewery’s Old Cellar Dweller, a seasonal barley wine released every year in time for the holidays. This year’s offering is brewed with 98% Pale Malt and a small trace of CaraMunch thrown in for color, and is then bittered using a generous dose of Columbus hops.

Tasting Notes: As I’ve said before, every year’s OCD is a little different. This year, they chose to tone down the alcohol (just a little), and go the single hop and (mostly) single malt route in order to showcase what both of these ingredients, in their most concentrated states, could do. And like the two previous vintages, this year’s tends more towards the Imperial IPA than a barley wine. But it remains a powerful winter warmer, boasting some rich malts, powerful hops, and a warm, alcoholic bite!

If they just called it an imperial IPA then I would probably not care as it represents the style well. I know it originally changed due to being over 12% and being tested and being forced to cut it to below 12%. Why not just rectify the issue that brings the beer ABV to high or brew up a batch of porter and cut it with that. It would probably work better with the style.